I need to confess something before I attempt to review this book. I am one of those who have benefited professionally from this book. I guess you need to hear it as it is a hilarious story. Landmark s in Bangalore had organized a 'book reading' by Guha at the time of the release of this book and he started his session asking the audience to guess the number of languages in which the figure '500' was written in a five hundred rupee currency note. You would be surprised by the answer - "It is 15 (That too excluding the ubiquitous English man's tongue)!"
Now back to our story- A week later, I was trying to convince a European (A Belgian) the feasibility of outsourcing services to India. As expected, we dodged all questions on language, timings and was about to conclude the discussion when he came up with a 'Muralidharan doosra' - "You folks are used to outsourcing from US" he paused for a minute and continued "Continental Europe is much different than a US or a GB. Here we have multiple cultures and it is difficult to appreciate such subtle variations!"
Thankfully, I remembered the 500 Rupee story and after the whole story telling session, he was convinced that for an Indian, anything less than 10 different versions (be it language/culture/food habits) is abnormal. So I might become biased in my review (which is unintentional) which I promise that I will try my best to avoid.
Ramachandra Guha has done a great service to people like me, the Gen Y (Once upon a time I used to feel great, calling self Gen Y. Now a days the Gen AA calls me 'uncle' instead of a lovable 'chetta' or elder brother) - the beneficiaries of a system set up by Nehruvian politicians, who has no qualms in calling him various names like 'Charlatan, political scoundrel, pretender to the throne et al.' Three parts out of this six parts cover the formation of our nation and the foundation of its base.Before reading history of our nation, before knowing the kind of difficulties faced by our founding fathers, I used to hold them responsible for all the illness that India faced. Now when I juxtaposition their decisions with the times they lived, looking the superstructure they have created - the Indian constitution, its three arms and the machinery that enforces the actions of the arms, I cant stop admiring the vision and the foresightedness of our forefathers. All these happened in the late 1940s when India was reeling under the pressure of partition, world's bloodiest exodus, riots, famine and what not. Guha aptly summed up the formation of our constitution by saying "Fundamental rights were to be framed amidst the carnage of fundamental wrongs"
Ramachandra Guha does a fantastic job of telling the story of formation, but I was disappointed in him for not having dealt with where we started as a nation in 1947. A lot of us still believes in the theories of Seal/Gallagher/Namier - in the benevolence of the Imperial Raj. In fact recently I was shocked when a survey listed that a good amount of current generation believed that India would have been better off in the hands of Englishmen. (Then again I cant vouch for the veracity of their claims. As somebody rightly said "There are three kinds of lies...Lies, damned lies and then you have statistics"). India after Independence: 1947-2000 by Bipin Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee does a better job of that. For those who believes that Indian rule took us to misery a simple statistics from that book. In 1940s we had 10 medical colleges in India, churning out 700 graduates and 7 Engineering colleges with 2217 graduates annually! An impartial analysis by Guha (with his background - MA in Economics from Delhi School of Economics) of the much maligned 'Nehru-Mahalanobis' era would have given us a better understanding on where we started, what we achieved and where we went wrong. Then again, I can't say if that is the job of a sociologist-historian or that of an economist. Let us hope that some day, some one like Amartya Sen with a unique knowledge of Economics and history would write a book on that.
I had always taken articles on Indira and emergency with a pinch of salt as I felt those as either hymns in worship of Indira or it would be those of Indira baiters who ascribe every evil in the world to her. Part 4 of the book does a detailed analysis on the rise of Indira and the circumstances that led to emergency. While not absolving Indira of the crime of assuming a dictatorship, Guha also gives some insight into the actions of JP and other veterans who forced Indira. As Guha rightly points out, while Indira adopted extra constitutional methods to retain her power, JP and co was preaching the very same to keep her out of power, which led to the confrontation. Guha rightly sums up the excess through the words of New York Times' correspondent in India A M Rosenthal "Had Nehru lived while Indira reigned, she would have been in PM's house and Jawaharlal would have been back to writing letters to her from jail!"
A singular feature of this book which makes it different from others covering the history of post independent is that an attempt was made to cover the stories of regional satraps. Since I am a novice with little or no knowledge on Indian history, I can't comment on other leaders,but being from Kerala, I can talk about EMS Namboothiripad. Guha terms Nehru's dismissal of democratically elected communist government as one of his main failures as a just leader. While it is true that the opposition led by congress went into an alliance with communal church and upper caste Hindu NSS, a student of Kerala history would have known about the excesses committed during the communist rule which made it unpopular. Post reading this book, I decided to talk to some of those who lived in that era to get a better picture. Since my family has a congress leaning, I decided to do an informal poll amongst the parents of my known neutral friends (which is a rarity in Kerala). All of them talked about the "Cell rule" (Communist Party's local cells) that made life difficult in Kerala in those times. Even today, each time the CPM comes to power, the state matters are decided by the party's local leaders. To me it is a subversion of our constitution and our system. May be that is one of the reasons why Keralites keep on alternating the parties. It's the greatest shame of my state that leaders of one party (congress) are corrupt and the other party is systemically corrupt! How else can you classify a party that owns some 4 channels, 1 newspaper, 1 magazine, couple of industries and a whole lot of real estate and that too they claim that they made through 'Bucket pirivu' (Party volunteers collecting donations from farm hands in a bucket!) It's better not talking about the recent scandals involving 'donations' in the order of crores from an absconding crook!
N.S Rajaram in his review of the book in The week dated 27 May, said "The author's relative success with recent history in contrast to his weak coverage of earlier period may be due to his approach as a social anthropologist than a research historian" Guha exonerating BJP from the condemnation as a fascist party might have prompted Rajaram to term Guha's coverage of recent history as a success but I feel it was the weakest of the lot in this book. Guha has nothing but contempt for Rajiv Gandhi. In fact it showed during the book reading when he claimed that Rajiv's only legacy was flying a cesna non stop from X to Y. (I forgot his exact words). For all his defects, and for all his shortcomings (which is in multiude like the sikh riots/Shah Bhano case/Opening of Ayodhya etc etc), Rajiv was a symbol of hope for India. For that matter, today's telecom revolution owes a lot to his so called 'immature ideas' about technology and his much maligned 'computer boys'. To draw a parallel, I hope Guha wont say that Kennedy's only legacy was bedding Marlyn Monroe! I also can't understand why according to Guha the credit to a Mizo accord or a Bodo accord shouldn't go to Rajiv (as it was made possible by seasoned diplomats). Is there any accord anywhere in the world which wasn't done by diplomats? The very little I know, a leader gets the credit for making the climate for an accord, which is then well sewed up by his diplomats.
For all the disagreements, this is a scholarly work by is a good starting point to understand post Independent India. To be fair on Guha, it is impossible to cover in depth about India's 60 years simply because, India is too huge to cover. My only disappointment about this book (despite the 775 pages) was that it got over so soon. I heard a lot of people saying this is Ramachandra Guha's magnum opus. I hope it isn't and his magnum opus is yet to come for this book has really created a hunger in me to know more about India's journey in the last 60 years.
Verdict: 7/10. A must have in your book shelf
PS: I had already bought a copy when I went for the book reading, but meeting the writer I admire a lot, couldn't help not buying a second signed copy. :-) So anyone planning to buy this book, please get in touch with me.
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